


It's In The Cards

by ScotlandEvander



Series: Over the Rainbow [31]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Tarot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 19:52:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/891187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScotlandEvander/pseuds/ScotlandEvander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regulus pulled a stack of cards off his bedside table and flipped the first one over. </p><p>Death. Upside down. </p><p>Change. Painful and unpleasant. </p><p>He slipped the card back into the pile and shuffled again. He flipped the next card over. </p><p>The Devil. </p><p>Great. This was turning out to be a great idea, Regulus thought scathingly. </p><p>True evil was coming his way. </p><p>Shoving the card back into the pile, he flipped the next one over. </p><p>The Fool. Right side up.</p><p>A new beginning. Important decisions were going to be made and hopefully it’d turn out all right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's In The Cards

**Disclaimer: If you know it, I do not own it. Parts taken from _Half Blood Prince_ and _Deathly Hallows_ , both by JKR.**

* * *

Regulus sat down heavily on his bed, hand still on his cheek where Addy’s hand had rested moments ago. He had been unable to see her, but he could feel her presence, hear her voice and then she touched him. 

It had been so long since someone had touched him without wanting to hurt him, he almost broke into tears. 

He pulled a stack of cards off his bedside table and flipped the first one over. 

Death. Upside down. 

Change. Painful and unpleasant. 

He slipped the card back into the pile and shuffled again. He flipped the next card over. 

The Devil. 

Great. This was turning out to be a great idea, Regulus thought scathingly. 

True evil was coming his way. 

Shoving the card back into the pile, he flipped the next one over. 

The Fool. Right side up.

A new beginning. Important decisions were going to be made and hopefully it’d turn out all right. 

Sighing, he put the cards back on his bedside table. He had kept the card deck there since he graduated, occasionally grabbing it and flipping cards over. 

The cards never had anything good to tell him. Death, destruction and pain. 

Regulus’ life was pretty much filled with those three things constantly. He was miserable and scared but he now saw a light at the end of the long, dark tunnel he’d been walking down for the past year. 

It was almost over. He knew he ought to not feel so much relief at the thought of being dead, but he simply was unable to help it. He felt like he’d been awake for over a year and it was nearing bedtime. 

“Regulus?”

Regulus startled, eyes flying to the now open door of his bedroom. His father filled the doorway, studying his youngest son carefully. 

“Yes, Father?”

“Where is Kreacher?”

Regulus gestured for his father to enter the room. Orion Black had not set foot in the bedroom since his youngest was a small child, but he entered smoothly and swiftly as if he did it daily. Orion shut the door and waved his wand. Regulus knew he was silencing the room from eavesdroppers, such as his mother and Bellatrix, who had taken to haunting Gimmauld Place, likely to keep Regulus in line and watching his father. The conversation he had had with his father the day after his branding was still fresh in his memory. 

Both Black males both knew their time was up. Regulus could read it in the lines of his father’s face, see it in his eyes and felt it in the gaze that now landed on him. 

“Where is Kreacher?” Orion repeated. 

“I sent him to Atlanta. No one can find her or see her. I told him that she was his mistress now and he must obey her.”

Orion looked uneasy. 

“Will he follow? He is rather devoted to your mother as well as you,” Orion reminded Regulus.

“I think after tonight, he will stay with her till she tells him to leave,” Regulus said, looking back at the table where his card deck sat. 

Orion pulled out the desk chair and set it down across from Regulus. “Tell me.”

Regulus took a deep breath and began speaking. 

“The Dark Lord needed a House Elf. Bellatrix volunteered Kreacher. She knew he meant something to me and for punishment in my failures, she believed that getting rid of Kreacher might work better than their other methods, as those failed.”

Regulus stared at the carpet, unable to look at his father. They both knew the methods used against him for his failures this past year. 

“So, Lord Smurf requested Kreacher from me. Before I sent Kreacher off with him, I told Kreacher a load of hogwash. How great an honor it was for the family and myself and that he must make sure he did whatever Lord Smurf told him to do.”

“You did not refer to Riddle as Lord Smurf to Kreacher, did you?”

Regulus’ head jerked up and met his father’s stormy blue-grey gaze. His father was wearing a small smirk, something Regulus had not seen on his usually serious father’s face in what seemed like eons. 

“I do not believe I did,” Regulus admitted. “I cannot believe I said that out loud.”

“I have no idea what a Smurf happens to be, but after this conversation, I’d like you to explain it.”

Regulus nodded. His father indicated with a wave of his hand to continue. 

“I told Kreacher that after the Dark Lord was finished with him, to come home. And with that he popped out of the house.”

Regulus cast his eyes back to the ground. 

“He returned earlier tonight. He was sick, weak and very thirsty. He coughed up whatever Lord Smurf had poisoned him with when I fed him some antidote. I gave him water and tested the poison. It was Darkest Nightmare Poison.”

Regulus glanced up. Orion made no noise, but by the size of his eyes, Regulus knew his father had heard of it. 

“I guess it is not fatal to Elves,” Orion said softly.

Regulus nodded. “I made Kreacher tell me everything that had happened to him. He told me what the Dark Lord did, step by step. Lord Smurf made Kreacher drink the poison. Once he had done this, the Lord Smurf dropped a locket into a basin and left, leaving Kreacher behind.”

“And since you ordered him home, he came home.”

Regulus nodded.

“Kreacher tried to drink the water from the lake this island was located in and was attacked by Inferi. From his descriptions, the entire lake is filled with dead bodies.”

Regulus glanced up and saw his father blanch. 

“After Kreacher told you his tale, you sent him to Miss Black’s?”

“Yes. Lord Smurf believes Kreacher is dead.”

“Fool.”

Regulus nodded his agreement. 

“It is like him to under estimate a House Elf. So, what do you believe the locket to be?”

“Something happened when Kreacher told me about the locket. I remembered something,” Regulus said quietly. “Atlanta found this object in the Room of Hidden Things at Hogwarts in my fifth year. It was a crown or something and it caused her to get very excited. We took it to Dumbledore, but then it goes fuzzy.”

“He _Obliviated_ you.”

“Yes. For my own good,” Regulus assured his father. “Father, that crown was a horcrux.”

Orion gasped. “A horcrux?”

Regulus watched his father clench and un-clench his fists, yet he had a contemplative look on his face.

“How did you guess that?”

“It felt…wrong,” Regulus said. “After Dumbledore erased whatever happened in the office. I remember…something happened and I was in the office. The crown was on the desk. I knew it was…evil. The crown. And after Kreacher told me what happened tonight, I suddenly realized it was in fact a horcrux and that locket must be one as well. The reason the meeting before Atlanta left that day is fuzzy was because Dumbledore didn’t want me to remember, incase Lord Smurf went poking around my head.”

“Did Dumbledore destroy the crown?”

“I have no idea. I don’t know how to destroy them,” Regulus admitted. 

“I am sure Dumbledore does,” Orion assured. A dark look passed over his father’s face. “Riddle made two horocruxes.”

“I fear he’s made more,” Regulus whispered. “I overheard Bella bragging to Mother about some cup Lord Smurf wanted to store in her vault.” 

“He split up his soul more than twice?” 

Regulus could hear the disgust and sheer awe in his father’s voice. Regulus nodded. He and his father sat in silence for a long while. 

“What are you plans, son?”

“I’m going to get the locket,” Regulus admitted. “I’m having Kreacher take me there in a few days.”

He met his father eye. He did not need to say out loud he wasn’t going to come back. They both knew it. 

“You told Miss Black?”

“I told her what happened to Kreacher and I planned to get the locket. I did not need to tell her anything else. She knew.”

Orion nodded. “I fear our time is short. Bellatrix’s never ending presence in the house tells me the your Lord Smurf is closing in on me.”

Regulus’ heart constricted. He did not like hearing his father speak about his own demise so flippantly. 

“I have everything in order, do not fear. Upon my own death, everything will automatically go to Sirius. He and only someone who does not wish to unseat him from his spot as Head of the Family will be able to access the box in the vault where the will is stored. Only after the will is read by Sirius will anyone be able to touch anything of value in my vault. Your mother, though, will keep access to her own vault till her death, then it’ll revert to Sirius as well.”

“Or someone who doesn’t wish to unseat him as Head of Family,” Regulus added. 

Orion nodded. 

“How will he find out?”

“I am sure after your mother passes, the Goblins will inform him. I’ve set funds up to transfer to him yearly up till her death. I doubt he will notice. He is somewhat oblivious.”

Regulus snorted. 

“He’s staying with Atlanta.”

Orion was silent for a long stretch. “Are you sure?”

“I could feel him in the flat, looking at me. I don’t know where her flat is located, as it’s under a charm to hide it, but I felt his eyes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sirius is gay, Father.”

“He is?”

“Yes, Father.”

Regulus peaked up through his hair to see how his father was taking this information. His father looked puzzled, but not upset. 

“Blood adoption,” his father muttered. “That’ll have to be the manner our family is carried on. I’ll add that to the box, as I doubt he’ll think of it.”

“Isn’t that old, Dark magic?”

Orion nodded. “If performed on a newborn, it is very harmless. I’ll leave details. I’m sure there is a part of him that wishes to carry on his own bloodline. He is a Black.”

Regulus doubted it, but said nothing. 

“Now, let’s end our evening discussion on a brighter note. Tell me what a Smurf happens to be,” Orion said, leaning back in the chair and lightly folding his arms across his chest. 


End file.
